Articles

GoPro has announced their “TradeUp” scheme. This allows existing GoPro owners to get a $100 reduction on a new HERO5 Black, or $50 off a HERO5 Session when they trade in any older GoPro HERO model. The trade-in can be in any condition, including non-functional. The old cameras will be recycled responsibly.

Boxfish Research has announced the Boxfish 360 immersive 360° camera. It has three frame-synced MFT cameras, with images from each combining to create single immersive, 5K 360-degree video and DNG RAW photo. Runtime is around 90 minutes and the anodized aluminum housing is rated to a depth of 300m (1000ft).

Scientists from the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Australia have recorded more bad news for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It is undergoing a further bleaching episode, primarily in the previously unaffected middle third of the reef. The northern end was bleached in 2016, so this leaves only the southern third unaffected.

In March of this year an expedition to Easter Island concluded with a slew of new species discovered living in the island’s “twilight zone”, the area between 200 and 500 feet deep. The team consisted of scientists from the California Academy of Sciences and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) and was the sixth expedition of the CAS’s Hope for Reefs initiative to study and restore coral reefs worldwide. Definitively the expedition recorded four new species of fish and one new species of sea biscuit that reside in the twilight zone.

Adobe’s Lightroom app offers many editing tools for image makers. One of these is the ability to generate custom color profiles for specific cameras. As underwater image makers, these profiles can help make our RAW images look more like the images we viewed on our camera’s LCD screens immediately after capturing them. Wetpixel presents a short tutorial covering the basics of creating custom camera calibration profiles.

Sony has announced the release of new solid state drives (SSD) specifically designed for use with external recorders like the Atomos Ninja 2. The SV-GS96 960GB model has a 2,400 terabyte rating will allow the drive to be fully written on five days a week for ten years without failing, while the 480GB model (SV-GS48) gives about half that durability. Both models feature data protection technology and a special connecter with 6 times the durability of SATA connectors.

An auction to benefit the Greater Farallones Association has been announced. Here is your chance to have a new species named after you. A previously undescribed species of sponge was found on the USS Independence at a depth of 2,600 feet off the Farallon Islands. The auction runs from April 13th to April 25th and the winner will name the new species of sponge, receive a photographic print of the sponge and a bound copy of the scientific publication where the sponge is described for the first time.

Magic Lantern has released an experimental build of their firmware that offers 4K RAW recording on the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. Also within the build is a Live View mode that shoots at 5796x3870 at 7.4 fps, even at faster shutter speeds. This will produce rolling shutter however. Magic Lantern point out that the current build has “plenty of bugs,” but expect that these will be worked out over time.